Chapter 5

Ellie managed to clean out the closet in the largest of the spare bedrooms before taking a break. She washed her hands and put on a fresh pot of coffee. It occurred to her that she had not checked to see if there was mail in the box at the end of the driveway, so she walked down to check it out.

The mailbox was crammed with circulars, a bank statement for her father, along with a letter from some conservancy group and a letter addressed to her from a law firm.

As she walked back to the house, she opened the letter addressed to her. Her eyes widened in surprise. Someone wanted to buy the property and was offering over three hundred thousand dollars.

Was that a good price? She didn’t have a clue, but she might know one way to find out. She’d call Lily Marsh.

The bank statement showed that her father’s bank accounts had been closed, which was no surprise since she’d filled out all of the paperwork to have that done.

When she got back inside, she dumped the junk into the trash and poured a cup of coffee. She sat down at the table and opened the letter from the Conservancy Group.

“What?”

The way the letter read made it seem that her father was a big benefactor. How could that be?

“More mysteries,” she grumbled as she got up and put the mail in the little stand on the kitchen counter.

She got her cell phone and placed a call to Lily’s cell.

“Hey, Lily. It’s Ellie. Sorry to bother you but I wondered if you had five minutes?”

“Sure Ellie, what’s up?”

“Well, I got a letter from a law firm.” She grabbed the envelope. “Johnston, Bremann, Miller, and Associates. In Orlando. They made an offer on behalf of a client on this property.”

“Seriously? That’s interesting. How much?”

“Three hundred and eighteen thousand.”

Lily laughed. “Toss that shit.”

“Really? It sounds like a lot to me.”

“For six hundred acres? Girl, if the land was only worth a thousand an acre, you’d be looking at six hundred thousand and I know it’s worth that.”

“Oh! I had no idea. Okay, I guess I’ll just toss this then.”

“You making any progress over there? Need any help?”

“Right now, I’m still going through things. I have one more closet to go through and then I start thinking about doing some painting and stuff like that.”

“Well, let me know if you need help, okay?”

“I will. Thanks Lily. And thanks for the advice.”

“Sure thing hon. And hey, if you decide you want to sell, do me a favor and talk to us first. We might be interested.”

“Okay, I definitely will. Thanks again, Lily. I’ll talk to you soon.”

Ellie ended the call and stood staring across the room for a few minutes. If Lily and her family were interested and the place was worth over half a million maybe she should consider selling.

It wasn’t as if she was going to use the land for cattle or horses or anything like that. She knew nothing about that sort of thing. And with that much money, she could find a small place back in the Carolinas and have plenty left over to put in the bank. There sure wasn’t much here to call home.

It hit her like the proverbial truckload of bricks. She’d found nothing of a personal nature in this place aside from the paintings and carvings. There were no old bills, no letters, and no receipts. There were only a few articles of clothing, an old rusted disposable razor, a few plates, cups, old cookware and bare refrigerator and cabinets.

Maybe he hadn’t really lived there. But if he hadn’t lived here then where had he lived?

And what about the paintings?

The paintings. She kept coming back to the paintings. That was all that existed of the man who’d been her father. She went into the spare room where she’d organized all of the paintings by year and started with the earliest.

She needed a place to spread them out so she could study them but there wasn’t enough space on the floor. On a whim, she ran out to her pickup. There was a small toolbox behind the seat. She grabbed it and took it inside.

The old hammer that had been her grannies was inside the toolbox along with a small box of short nails. Armed with tools, she set about hanging the pictures on the bedroom wall, as close together as she could get them. It took a couple of hours, and the walls were full before she ran out of paintings.

Ellie stepped back and started looking at the paintings, starting with the earliest she’d found. She became so engrossed that she completely lost track of time. It wasn’t until the light started to fade that she realized how much time had passed.

She went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. The choices were slim. She really should go to the grocery store.

Ellie checked the time. There must have been more to do at the Marsh Ranch than Cam thought. She hadn’t heard from him yet. But maybe she didn’t have to wait for him to call.

On an impulse, she placed a call to him. He answered on the third ring.

“Ellie? Everything okay?”

“Yeah, fine. I just thought I’d see if you wanted to have dinner with me. I need to run to the store anyway, and it’d be nice to have some company.”

“Sure. I should be done here in a couple of hours.”

“That’s fine. Like I said, I need to run to the store anyway.”

“Great. I’ll call when I’m on my way.”

“Okay. Talk to you soon.”

She ended the call and started to stick the phone in her pocket, but it rang. Thinking it might be Cam she answered without looking at the caller id. “Hey.”

“Ms. Whitehorse?”

“Yes.”

“Raymond Miller. Calling about the offer we made via mail on your property.”

“Oh. I’m not interested. Thanks.”

“I think it’d be in your best interest to reconsider.”

“I said no.”

“You’re making a mistake.”

“Goodbye.”

Ellie ended the call and shook off the creepy feeling it gave her. She was probably imagining things. The man had not implied any threat. Telling herself she was just paranoid, she grabbed her purse and headed out of the house.

Even using the map feature on her phone, she got turned around twice before she made it to the grocery store. Then once inside, rather than just picking up what she needed for the evening meal, she splurged and bought an entire week’s worth of groceries.

Ellie wheeled her cart out to her truck. “What the…?”

The driver’s side door of her truck looked like it had been kicked and the back tire was completely flat.

“Shit.” She stowed the grocery bags in the bed of the truck and dug out the jack. Her spare was not the best, but it would get her home.

By the time she’d changed the tire and loaded the flat into the truck, she was hot, tired, and dirty. She climbed in and that’s when she saw the piece of paper wedged under her windshield wiper.

Ellie got out to retrieve the paper and unfolded it. “Sell the land or the next time it won’t be a tire that gets cut.”

Fear spike hot and hard inside her, making her break out into a sweat and nausea boil in her stomach. She jumped in the truck, locked the door, and tried to calm herself as she looked around the parking lot.

How had anyone known she would be there? She’d been followed. That made her even more afraid. Why would someone do that? Just because she said no to an offer on her land? People didn’t act like that in real life.

Ellie started the truck and backed out. She needed advice and Cam was the one person she could trust. He worked for the Sheriff’s Department after all. He’d know what to do.

She’d been excited about seeing Cam, about fixing dinner, and enjoying his company. Now all that had changed. Now she wanted him to protect her from the snakes. Again.